The World Series Versus Missouri
by ultrafreakyfangirl
Summary: A Joe/Natalie missing scene from Season 7.


**_Author's Note: I know, don't shoot. It's been awhile. But I finally had the energy to sit down and want to write this. It's a missing scene from season 7 – there are so many. Joe tells Natalie he isn't moving, after all. _**

**_This one's called "The World Series Versus Missouri." _**

* * *

_"__I can't believe you're leaving." _

She would admit it to herself. She didn't want him to leave. The reason though, might be a little different than what she is admitting now.

She didn't want the only man who showed more than vague sexual interest in her to be out of her life; she didn't want the man who mocked her taste in novels, clothes, hair products, basically mocked everything about her, while also calling those things he mocked _sexy, hot_, or variations of the two, to be out of her life; she didn't want the man who slept next to her at night, his breathe soft and heavy against her face, as fucking annoying as that was, who lightly held her waist in bed so he knew that she was there, beside him, out of her life.

The man who hasn't explicitly said those words, but she saw them in his eyes as they stared at her, on his mouth as he smiled at her, and on his hands as he touched her, both illicitly and not, gone.

There were so many reasons. So many reasons for him not to leave her, but there was one she was most afraid of, terrified to talk about, for fear of him ever finding out. Finding out the truth.

_She loved him._

The truth was that she loved him, which is why this, his leaving, his moving to fucking Missouri, was hurting her this much.

She really didn't want him to go.

On Monday, as promised, the two of them did do that something special. Just a little differently than originally planned. A school fieldtrip – ironically, what looked to be eleventh grade History – made fucking in the garden of the FDR Presidential Library impossible, unless they wanted to give a peepshow, no charge.

Instead, their sex was slower, more awkward, because her long limbs were not meant to bend certain ways and forcing it against the pushback of the fucking gearshift and the steering wheel, was not helping increase any sort of pleasure.

It was encumbered and soft with sadness and realizations found too late, and the moment before she let herself be lost to him, the sense of autonomy lost to his thumb against her, his dick inside of her, she whispered that _she loved him _into his neck.

Her hair was in his fist, her face in the palm of his other hand, and both felt harsh with upset as he practically burrowed his lips into her skull and repeatedly kissed her temple, dotting kisses along the crown of her head, before reaching her mouth, his own _I love you _taken by her lips and tongue in a kiss that held every electrode of nervous energy that made up the entire world.

_Fuck me. _

As they drove back to his apartment in silence, his hand on her thigh, she knew that there was _no way_ he was leaving today without a fight. There had to be something that would make him stay. She was sure now, after their sexually charged admissions, that she was enough. That she_ had to be enough_, for him.

She hoped.

She kept her eyes straight on the road because she just knew that if she dares to look at him, look into his eyes, warm with sincerity and understanding, she was going to lose it.

This man that was once nothing to her was now, everything to her, he was_ everything_ to her in a sudden rush of that _can't_ _eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars_, _over the fence, homerun, world series_ kind of thing.

It was so unexpected, and it was never what she was looking for, not after Jason, and not with him, but now she wanted to cry over losing it; cry over how she never even got to take advantage of it, like that lovestruck high school senior, expecting she would just be able to up and follow her boyfriend across the country on his basketball scholarship.

All of this, all of this was – _it fucking sucked._

"Nat…"

Later on, he was talking softly, almost at a whisper, as she sat on his bed, fidgeting with the duvet. He was saying her name like it wasn't the last time he was ever going to speak to her, like this, but at the same time, it felt like there was something big there, an anticipation that she was, or was not, supposed to notice.

"I'm not moving."

She stared him dead in the face. She felt him take her hands, but she wouldn't tear her eyes away from his. She was scanning his expression for any hint of the joke that_ she was just not getting_ and finding none.

"Joseph. Don't you dare say that to me. For once, this isn't one of our games."

He smiled, almost reverently. It was soft, gentle. A flicker of something.

"I know. And I'm not treating it like one."

She made a move to take her hands away from his, but he just held on tighter. "_I love you,_ Natalie. I love you even more than I fucking hate you – "

"That much, _wow_." She raised her eyebrows with a smile identical to his. "Well, see, now I feel like a bitch."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Why?"

She grinned, fully and openly, squeezing his hands. This was _so_ not like her. But he had to know. He wasn't leaving her, he was here to stay, and she had to make the most of what she almost lost for good.

"Because I think I might love you more than that."

He hugged her to him, and she reciprocated, inhaling the consuming scent of his cologne and letting her head fall against his chest after they broke apart from their kiss.

He gently pressed his lips to her scalp. "You know this means that I can keep crooning Springsteen into your ear whenever you're trying to read."

She slapped his chest. "I will leave you so fast, your dick will still be hard as it's happening."

He scoffed. "Yeah right. You love it."

As if to prove his point, he leaned in closer to her ear and whispered, but it wasn't all teasing. _"Hey little girl is your daddy home did he go and leave you all alone…"_

"Fuck you," she told him, but her tone was light and without conviction as she kissed his cheek. "Thank you for staying."

He kissed her temple. "Thank you for being my reason."

Natalie rolled her eyes. She couldn't help it. It was just so…_ew. _

Then, she smiled_. _"I fucking love you."

* * *

**_Author's Note: I know, it's a little short. But it's a missing scene. I watched It Takes Two last night, can you tell? :P I've seen it like 3 times but I can't get enough of it. I love the OG Olsen twins (before drugs and ED's and just their general fall from grace, as sad as that is). Anyways, review! Readers, I know you're out there! :) I'm genuinely afraid the OITNB fandom is going to die soon. It's an end of an era for the show, it's only a matter of time, right? :( I have so many more ideas though, esp. with Joe/Natalie/Vanessa and their family of four! :) _**


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